


these ivy halls, the things they know

by Honeymull



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Casual D/s, F/F, Older Woman/Younger Woman, Power Imbalance, Undernegotiated Kink
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-29
Updated: 2016-03-29
Packaged: 2018-05-29 23:10:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6397783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Honeymull/pseuds/Honeymull
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Alexandra Hamilton is the newest schoolteacher hired under Headmistress Washington at the renowned Georgia Washington Academy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	these ivy halls, the things they know

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gonfalonier](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gonfalonier/gifts).



> Heed the tags - power imbalance in the form of authority figures taking advantage of the professional hierarchy (Headmistress/Teacher). 
> 
> Eventual Explicit rating.

The halls are empty, almost eerily so. Alexandra’s sensible kitten heels clack on the cherry-wood floor, and she winces a little at the echo they create. 

Its just so – fancy, here. She feels like she’s disturbing some important quiet, something resting ages-old in the walls. She knows how lucky she is to have been hired to the Academy, even as she’s perfectly aware of how her hard work and natural intelligence contributed to that as well. 

Georgia Washington is renowned for this school, and Alex is nervous about today, about meeting the headmistress for the first time. 

“Miss Hamilton?”

Alex jerks a little involuntarily, startled, realizing she’s entered the headmistress’ office. Her secretary is waiting patiently for Alex to acknowledge her. 

“Ms.,” Alex corrects absently. Then, recovering herself, with more warmth, “Sorry. Off in my own world for a moment.” 

The secretary blushes a little when Alex smiles at her, and Alex files that away for later. Could be useful. Could just be fun.

“Ms. Washington will see you in five,” she tells Alex. “I hope that’s not an inconvenience.”

“Not at all.”

Alex takes a seat to the right of the secretary’s desk, crossing her legs and tugging a bit at her skirt. It’s new, not quite broken in, and she’s extra conscious of how it looks on her. How she looks.  


She wants to make a good impression.

Exactly five minutes later (Alex keeps track), the door opens a sliver, and the secretary catches Alex’s eye from across the room. “Go on in.”

Alex gives her a smile again as she passes, then schools her expression into one more professional, friendly but mostly impassive. 

And then she sees Georgia Washington, and prickles run straight up her spine. She has a momentary urge to stand at parade rest, hands behind her back and her shoulders, legs, firm. That hasn’t happened to her since her stint in the Marines, and even then, it happened automatically with only the select few officers she respected enough.

Washington’s eyes are keen underneath her broad eyebrows as she looks up at Alex from her desk. 

“Ms. Hamilton.” Her voice is low, the kind of scratchy that comes from a superior taste in scotch. Alex hopes her passing knowledge of finer spirits isn’t tested in this woman’s presence. She prefers the cheaper drinks, can’t bring herself to indulge in such a temporary pleasure. Her budget is stretched as it is. John buys her good whiskey when they go out for drinks, tries to impress upon her the different varieties of it to whatever extent he can, but at the end of the day, Alex returns to her roots with the beer she grew up around and an occasional bottle of cheap wine with dinner. 

Alex inclines her head. “Headmistress.”

There’s a spark of something in Washington’s eyes. Sharp and almost amused, Alex thinks. It's not unkind. “I take it you’re settling in nicely? I heard you’ve taken up lodgings in the city – may I ask whereabouts?”

That is…not the line of questioning Alex was expecting, and she fights down a flush. She has nothing to be ashamed of. She holds her chin up, back straight, and answers. “Communal hostel on 5th. Just until I find a more permanent place.”

“Mmm. I’ve found the apartments on Main across from our lacrosse fields are particularly nice, if you’re looking.”

Alex eyes her. She doesn’t seem the type to be obtuse, and there’s something aloof and yet searching in her tone. Alex doesn’t know what she’s angling for. “With all due respect, Headmistress, that’s out of my price range.”

It’s a blank, matter-of-fact delivery, Alex makes certain of that, but Washington’s eyes lose the edge they held initially. “Ah. Is that all? We can easily stipend for living accommodations. Get in contact with Ingrid. She owns the property, and I’ll let her know you’re staff.” She raises a hand to silence Alex when Alex opens her mouth. “It’s expected that our staff live in acceptable comfort and accessibility to the Academy. This is no different than what we offer the rest of those in our employ.”

Alex nods dumbly. She refuses to accept charity, but, well. She’s smart enough, intuitive enough, to know this is along those lines, but Washington’s expression brooks zero possibility for refusing the gesture. 

“Thank you, ma’am.”

“’Headmistress’ will be just fine, thank you, Ms. Hamilton.”

Alex’s lips quirk despite herself. “Alex will be just fine. Headmistress.”

She’s pretty sure she’s not imagining the amused glint that enters Washington’s dark eyes. “Of course.”

“You’ll meet your students day after next,” Washington continues. “Do you need anything before then?”

Alex gives her the courtesy of thinking about it, reviewing the preparations she’s already made for her first day. She thinks she’s ready. She thinks she has everything, but for her students, she won’t turn down the offer to provide her students with more. 

“Perhaps…”

Washington nods, encouraging her to continue with the thought.

“Perhaps I could use a few newer editions of my course books. Most of them I’ve been carting around for years in my, ah. In the rest of my career, and a few are quite out of date.”

Washington leans forward. “Provide Rebecca-“ she inclines her head toward her door, to her secretary “-with the requisite texts and you’ll have them. Anything else?”

“I don’t believe so, ma’ – Headmistress.” Belated, “Thank you.”

“Of course,” Washington’s tone is brisk, even as she levels Alex with a look that feels, more than anything, oddly satisfied. “Thank you for requesting what you need.”

And that – oh. Oh, that does something to Alex. Being thanked for asking for what she needs, that’s something she ties intrinsically to sex, to asking for a mouth or fingers, being told she’s good for doing so. Being denied it until she asks. 

She swallows, and she knows Washington doesn’t miss it. She makes sure she controls her breathing, despite her heart beginning to race. 

“You may go,” Washington says, looking down at the papers scattered across her desk in some kind of controlled chaos Alex can’t quite make sense of. 

Alex nods, catches herself before she clicks her heels together in a military salute, and paces to the door. 

Her hand is on the knob when – 

“Ms. Hamilton. I’m sincerely glad to have you on my staff. You will prove invaluable to this institution, I am sure of it.”

Alex keeps her face turned away so Washington can’t see the blush that slams into her cheekbones, up to her temples and across her jaw. “Thank you, Headmistress. I hope to.”

She slips out the door and barely remembers to manage a smile at Rebecca as she flees the office.  
  
  
  
  
  
Washington is more active in the day-to-day activities of the school than any other member of higher educational management Alex has ever come across. 

Some days, she enters Alex’s classroom between periods, sits at a desk in back so unobtrusively the students barely notice her presence. She’ll walk the halls, head high and shoulders back, her imposing height parting the crowds of students like water. 

And the students themselves: they adore her. Alex realizes this the third time she witnesses Washington stop in her purposeful stride to place a hand on a student’s shoulder, duck her head confidentially to ask something of them. The way they look at her – Alex is warmed inside from it.  
  
  
  
  
  
“So when you take into account the institutional power dynamics affecting every lower socioeconomic bracket, you realize… Gilbert?”

Gilbert, sharp as a whip, young and eccentric and embracing it, is one of her favorite students. He’s insightful and thoughtful, clever and acerbic by turns, and he’s made Alex flounder for an answer more than once with his inquisitiveness. His mind is incredible, and he refuses to play it off. 

“You realize,” he drawls, “that no mere socioeconomic bracket is affected alone by class, but is intrinsically tied into a variety of other factors. Race, for instance.”

Alex nods, favoring him with a pleased smile. “Indeed. I’m Puerto Rican, for instance. My experiences may intersect with yours, Gilbert, seeing as we’re both people of color, but we should all fully acknowledge the distinct differences we still all face within that category.” She looks up abruptly, toward the back of the classroom. Her tone is sharp. “Don’t make that face, George. You have a responsibility, being white, to know this, in order to change it.”

George sulks in back, legs spread wide underneath his desk. It’s not that Alex dislikes him, it’s just….Well. Okay, she kind of dislikes him. He’s a good student with exemplary marks, but his attitude can veer into the petulant, into childlike selfishness when the subject doesn’t personally interest or apply to him. 

He looks at Gilbert and barely bothers disguising his eye roll. Gilbert gives him a beaming smile back, and only Alex can see the simmering razor’s edge to it. 

She wants George to learn, but sometimes…sometimes she just wants him _out_.

Washington chooses that moment to slip through the door. She gives Alex, then the students a nod. “Don’t mind me. Please carry on.”

Alex takes a breath. “George. Would you care to expand on your opinion of the subject matter?” she says sweetly, not a little vengeful. 

George slides a glance at Washington, who’s watching him with expectant eyes, drumming her slim, dark fingers on the desk she’s chosen. She’s in a sprawl, a habit Alex finds unaccountably endearing from such a formidable figure. 

“Please,” she says.

“I…” Alex suppresses a mean smile as George searches for a way to express himself in a way that can’t directly offend his Headmistress. He directly comes up short. “I think Ms. Hamilton covered it suitably,” he says, a weak deflection that has Washington level an amused look at Alex. 

Alex doesn’t acknowledge it, even as she catches Gilbert grinning openly out of the corner of her eye. “I see. Thank you, George.”

She continues with her lesson plan with no further interruptions from George, or anyone else, and Washington gives her a coveted smile of approval when the class is done.

“Well handled,” she tells Alex once the students have all exited.

Alex looks up at her, surprised and a little wary.

Washington laughs. “I was listening by the door. I heard Gilbert and your…chastisement of George’s response. I do expect my staff to handle such issues, and I’m pleased by your approach. I must have a word with Gilbert soon,” she adds, almost to herself. “The boy hasn’t come to me about college concerns for a while now. God knows he deserves the utmost in higher education.”

“I couldn’t agree more.” Alex lights up, knows she’s ungracefully enthused, but – her students are so important, and Gilbert has such incredible potential, and – “He’s a brilliant mind. Please let me know what I can do in way of encouraging him to be his best? He seems to know exactly what he wants, but sometimes I. Sometimes I wonder.” She pauses. “I’m glad he has your ear.”

Washington glances at her in surprise, then her expression smooths out. “Of course. He’s very important to me. I knew his mother before she passed. She was just as spectacular a mind, and even more so a person.”

It’s one of the most personal things Washington has shared with Alex, and Alex feels the weight of that confidence deep in her chest. 

“I can only imagine,” she murmurs. 

Washington seems to come out of her reverie, but the looks she gives Alex is still unaccountably soft. Fond. “Yes. Thank you. Your efforts to engage him to his best ability are truly appreciated.”  


Alex inclines her head, and Washington leaves the classroom in a sweep of elegant skirt and heels.

  
  
  
  
  
  
“She’s not!” Alex tilts her beer up to hide the blush she’s sure is washing over her face. “I just admire her. She’s done so much for that school, for the kids, you know?”

John laughs in her face, his arm slung over the back of their booth. “Right, that’s why you’re all pink and _squirmy_ right now.”

“I am not-!” Alex reaches across their table to shove John as hard as she can. “Jesus, you’re awful.”

“It’s hardly unexpected, Lex. She’s a fox.”

“I’m not having this conversation.”

“Fine, fine,” John relents, his freckled face crinkled up in laugh lines. 

Alex snorts into the next sip of her beer, fervently glad he’s done with _that_ line of questioning. She still can’t think too hard about the Academy’s Headmistress without a distinct kind of heat flushing up through her belly and chest. It’s hardly professional, and she keeps it locked down in the strictest degree.

Washington is just so – sharp, charismatic in a fearsome kind of way, and she demands respect. She demands those around her bend their necks to her authority, and god. God, that makes Alex want to push. Push and push until she sees something more, something sheer and _raw_ from Washington. 

Maybe it’s unhealthy – okay, she knows there’s an inherent fuckery to lusting after her boss – but it’s a vicious thing growing in her, and she’s not sure she even wants to keep as tight a lid on it as she does now. 

“Mulligan!”

Alex starts a little bit at John’s shout. It turns heads from the rest of the bar patrons, but their disgruntled looks soon smooth out as they see Herc making her way through the tables to John and Alex’s booth.

Gorgeous and tall and built solid, Herc makes heads turn everywhere she goes. She’s wearing carefully distressed jeans and a casual tee, nothing particularly glamorous, but Alex smirks as the very tips of John’s ears go a delicate shade of pink, watching her approach.

“God, kill me now,” Herc says, dropping into the seat next to John with a sigh. “Waterman's had me doing that bastard needlework I told you about, all week. My hands are gonna fall off.”

“And boy, wouldn’t that be a shame,” Alex drawls, shooting John a pointed look.

Herc is oblivious to the sudden battle underneath the table as John kicks Alex hard, and she returns a devastating jab to his ankle bone. Herc sighs a second time, stealing John’s drink. “Just my entire career down the drain, no big deal.”

John takes his drink back with a “Hey!” and then immediately relents as Herc gives him her best pout. He levers himself up to go get Herc her own drink, lets Alex put in her own order for the next round. 

While he’s at the bar, Herc leans forward. “So? New job?”

Alex grimaces. “It’s wonderful. Incredible. Basically unreal.”

“So…the face is because...”

“My boss is _hot_.” Alex shushes Herc as she barks out a laugh. “Stop! It’s awful! Like. She’s _really_ hot. You have no idea, Hercy, it’s brutal. And she’s brilliant and groundbreaking and kind of scary, but in a good way, and ugh.” She puts her head down on the sticky tabletop. “If Waterman kills you, take me with you.”

She feels Herc’s hand in her hair, the gentle scritch of her fingernails in soothing circles from crown to nape.

“Aww. But I’ll kill Waterman first. You’ll have to find another way, babe, I’m sorry.”

Alex just mumbles into the woodwork, playing up her distress to make Herc keep playing with her hair. 

“ _Para ti, para mi_ and a cocktail for the lady.” John sets down all three drinks with a flourish, and Alex picks her head up with a groan.

“Thanks, buddy,” she murmurs into the cold metal lip of her PBR, gulping down huge swallows of it at once.

She hears John ask Herc something, his voice sweet and lilting up with the question, but it doesn’t register.

It’s Friday, and she has two whole days before she has to be back at the Academy. She wants to keep going, doesn’t want to stop for the weekend, and this is as good a way as any to curb that urgent forward drive. 

And if it serves the dual purpose of helping numb the equally fervent need to go to her knees in front of her boss’s high oak desk, she tells herself, then that’s just a happy coincidence.


End file.
